


Coming Home

by Liminal_Space_LLC



Series: The World Only Spins Forward universe [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Catholic!Dex, Coming Out, Gay!Dex, Happy Ending, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Original Character(s), Platonic Soulmates, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 12:09:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16534292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liminal_Space_LLC/pseuds/Liminal_Space_LLC
Summary: Dex comes out to his parents, and his mother takes matters into her own hands.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> 10 days to go until The World Only Spins Forward is published!
> 
> I'm counting down the last ten days before I post my fic for the OMGCP Big Bang by releasing content from the world of the story every day. They will all be collected in this [tumblr post](https://liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com/post/179805915293/countdown-to-twosf), so if you enjoy this, go check it out :)
> 
> (Content warnings are included in the end notes.)

Dex hears his mom call, “Time to get the table ready!” and he sucks in a breath.

He checks his financial spreadsheet again, then his bank accounts. Just to make sure.

He looks at the Frogs chat, to reread the messages Chowder and Nursey sent him as encouragement. He knows it’s stupid, but the block of hearts from Chowder makes his heart beat a little faster, and he just stares at it for a couple seconds.

Then he looks at his messages from Bitty. _Every single member of SMH is here for you. We have your back, no matter what. You are so loved, honey._

He looks at the photos of Bitty feeding Tater pie on Tater’s private Instagram. Well, he thinks wryly, if this really goes south, at least he’ll get to feed pie to Alexei Mashkov. Ransom’s gonna be so jealous.

“Billy, you better get over here, or you’ll be doing the dishes alone!” his mom says, and he can just see the look she’s giving him through the wall.

“Coming!” he yells back. He puts down his phone and heads to the kitchen.

As he walks in, his mom is waiting for him with her arms crossed, but she smiles when she sees him and reaches up to put her hands on his shoulders. “Jesus, every summer it’s the same, Billy. I can’t get over how big my little boy is now. David Backes better watch out.”

He suddenly has to give her a hug, and she hugs him back without question. For a moment he wonders if it would be worth staying in the closet for this to never change, to be his mom’s little boy forever.

She laughs. “Okay, you’re forgiven for being late, now go help your sisters.”

Ellie and Myra have basically finished setting the table, but he pulls down cups and fills them with water like they’re at a restaurant to do his part. Myra rolls her eyes but doesn’t comment. Ellie sidles up to him while he’s at the sink and bumps him with her shoulder. She raises an eyebrow at him, asking the question that he’s been asking himself for the past eight hours. Or maybe the last month. Or maybe his whole life.

He nods. She squeezes his wrist and leans her head against his shoulder and whispers so soft only he can hear it, “Love you, Billy.”

He’s not sure he can talk right now, so he nods and quickly kisses the top of her head. She was a good choice for the first of his family to know, he thinks. Dependable Ellie—she’d given him a big hug after he came out, and when he’d asked her if she’d guessed, she said, “Mya and I talked about it, but we decided you probably were straight.” Then he’d asked her why, and she gave him a sly smile. “Well, we thought being gay would’ve made you dress better.” He tried to push her off the dock, but she was too fast.

He finishes filling the cups and sets them down on the table in rainbow order, maybe as a private joke, maybe for luck, before taking the spot next to Ellie. His mom puts the last of the food on the table and calls, “David! Dinner’s ready!”

His dad walks in from his office and looks over the table. “What kind of potatoes do we have today, Bree? Were you able to get the russets before Ed cleaned them out?”

His mom laughs, and they hold hands as his dad leads them in saying grace. As soon at their hands have fallen, Myra starts talking about her shift at the ice cream shop with some annoying boy from school, but Dex only vaguely pays attention to what everyone’s saying. He focuses on eating his food and not losing his nerve.

In what seems like minutes, all the plates are empty, and his mom is pulling out tupperware for the leftovers. He can feel Ellie looking at him.

He swallows. It’s strangely loud in his ears. “Mom, dad, Mya, I, um, need to tell you something.”

Myra asks blithely, “Ooooh, what is it Billy?” She’s watching him brightly with her big brown eyes.

He looks at her because it’s so much easier than looking at his parents. He stares at her face, wishing he could imprint it against his eyelids. She looks more like dad than he does, with her brown hair and heart face, but she has mom’s easy smile.

He ignores his parents for a second and says directly to Myra, “I’m gay.”

She grins. “Cool!” God, he loves her so much. Little Myra.

His parents don’t say anything. He glances at their faces, holding his breath, trying to divine what they might be thinking. His mom’s face is maybe slightly surprised, but she’s got her “processing” face on, where her eyes gaze blankly into the distance. His father is looking at him with a crease between his eyebrows. He meet’s Dex’s gaze, and his lips press into a thin line. “Do you mean you’re homosexual, Billy?”

“Dad,” says Myra exasperatedly, “nobody says ‘homosexual’ anymore.”

But Dex just nods, hoping this question means his father wants to know more about him.

The crease in his dad’s forehead somehow grows deeper. “How long have you known?”

Dex swallows. “Since I was ten.”

His father nods thoughtfully at the potatoes. There’s a long pause. Dex glances at his mother. She’s watching his father.

His father asks, staring at the potatoes still, “So your school didn’t do this?”

Dex’s heart sinks. “No, Dad. It wasn’t Samwell.” He can feel it happening, even now. Like a storm approaching over the ocean, when the light turns yellow and the wind turns taut. God he was such an idiot to think this could go well.

“Who have you told?” his dad asks, still not looking at him.

“Some friends at school. You guys, except Davey.” His heart is beating too fast.

“No one at church?”

“No. No one.” He can’t seem to take his eyes off his father. He feels like a deer in headlights, transfixed by the minute movements of his dad’s face.

His father takes a deep breath and finally looks at him. “Then, William—”

“David,” his mom interrupts. “Do not say another word.” Her voice is steely. Dex looks at his mother. She’s drawn herself up to her full height, and her gaze is fixed on his father, her chin set.

“Bree, I will not—” his dad starts, but Mom interrupts him again.

“Kids, I want you to go over to Uncle Pat and Aunt Shannon’s house for a little while, okay? Your dad and I are going to talk.” She doesn’t take an eye off of their father.

There’s a long moment of silence. Ellie stands up first. She grabs his arm and tugs him out of his chair, and he hears the scrape of chair legs as Myra stands to follow them.

Ellie leads them out the back door into the warm June evening and through the little wood dividing their backyard and Uncle Pat and Aunt Shannon’s backyard. It’s been a couple years since their parents have sent them out of the house while they talk—at least, to Dex’s knowledge—but when they knock the back door, Aunt Shannon greets them without a blink. She and Uncle Pat have always been really good about helping out the Poindexters and not telling the whole Kelly clan when little Bree and her husband are having a tiff.

She gives them all big hugs then sits them down in her kitchen and opens up the jar of cookies she always keeps on the counter. “Here you go, kids. I’m gonna go get my folding. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

They smile and thank her, but as soon as she’s gone, Myra turns to her older brother and sister and whispers, “What is going on? Why are mom and dad fighting?”

Ellie looks at him, chewing her lip. “I don’t know, Mya.”

He meets Mya’s eyes, and he doesn’t want to tell her what he thinks their parents are talking about. All he has are his conjectures and his worst fears, so he just tells her, “I don’t know.” But he taps his pocket under the table to check that he still has the keys to his truck.

Aunt Shannon returns with a basketful of laundry, and they help her fold as she asks them how they’ve been. He answers her questions about college when she asks, but he mostly tries to drink in this moment. Maybe his last moment of normalcy with his family. He wishes he could write like Nursey so he could put down this old familiar scene on paper and hold onto it forever. Aunt Shannon’s blue and white kitchen and her perfect cranberry cookies. Myra eating three times as many cookies as anyone else and scrunching up her nose because they’re so good. Ellie gamely folding socks because they’re her favorite thing to fold. Though now that she’s seventeen, she looks more like the pictures of their mom at her age than the little girl in his memories of this kitchen. She’s got the long blonde hair and the green eyes and the upturned nose. She’s going to look just like mom when she gets older.

And suddenly Dex wonders how much older his sisters will be the next time he sees them, and he can’t breathe. He mumbles, “be right back,” and heads to the back door.

He slips out as quietly as he can and settles onto the concrete back steps. He stares at the woods, turning dark as the sun sets, and tries to breathe slowly. He thinks about his sisters, chatting with Aunt Shannon inside, and his eyes prickle painfully.

He closes his eyes and tries to listen to the crickets and the frogs, like he used to do when he couldn’t sleep. He misses this sound. Samwell isn’t Boston, but it still doesn’t sound like Maine.

His chest grows heavy and he nearly curses aloud. He can’t let his dad see him red-eyed and teary. There will be time to cry later in the car. He’ll call Chowder and—

Suddenly he hears the sound of a car door slamming and the engine of the Poindexter family Honda starting up. But that doesn’t make any sense. Would be driving the car right now?

He hears the car drive down their road and away over the hill. What the hell?

He heads back into Uncle Pat and Aunt Shannon’s house. Whatever’s happening, someone from their house will be calling soon to tell them to come back. Or, at least, to tell Ellie and Myra to come back.

He sits back down at the kitchen table and folds Uncle Pat’s work shirts until the phone rings.

Aunt Shannon stands and picks up the phone off the wall. “Hi Bree,” she says into the receiver, “Yeah, they’re all here—alright, I’ll tell them. Talk to you soon.”

She turns to smile at the three of them. “Your mom wants you home, kids. Sounds like she’s got everything sorted out.”

They thank Aunt Shannon, and Ellie leads them out the back door again. It’s almost full dark now, and Aunt Shannon asks, “Will you be okay in the dark?”

Myra laughs. “Of course! We’ve done this a million times!”

“Okay, well, come back soon! I’ll have more cookies ready!” Dex gives her a tight hug and thanks her again quietly. She looks up at him curiously but just waves as he and the girls walk off.

They head back through the little wood, walking a little more slowly this time in the dark. Myra chats easily, and Ellie is more talkative, but Dex can’t find it in him to talk much. At the end of this walk he finds out…something.

They walk back into the house to find mom sitting on the couch, watching the news, alone. As soon as she sees them, she turns off the TV. Dex holds his breath.

But his mom crosses the room instantly and wraps him in her arms. “Oh, Billy. My Billy. My little boy.” Her voice sounds like she’s been crying. And even as his chest grows tight, he can feel the tension and fear begin to release. He’s his mom’s Billy. Nothing can be too bad now.

But he can’t keep the edge of tears out of his own voice as he curls down to hold her and asks, “Mom? What’s going on? Where’s dad?”

She takes a shuddering breath and speaks with her cheek pressed against his chest. “This is my house. This is the Kelly house. And you are a Kelly, and this is your home.”

He pulls back to look at her. “Mom, what do you mean?”

“He wanted—he didn’t want you to stay with us,” she says, gazing up at him, her eyes bright with tears. It feels like something hot and sharp is stabbed through his chest. He’d guessed, he’d feared, but it’s something else altogether to hear his mom admit what his dad had been about to say.

Myra yelps. “Dad wanted Billy to _leave?_ What the fuck?!” Her eyes are wide with disbelief.

Dex glances at Ellie. She’s chewing on her lip again. She meets his eye and gives him a little shrug.

“Don’t use that language in the house, Mya,” Mom sighs. “But, yes. And I told him that he could get over himself or he could go.”

Mya sits down on the couch and stares at the blank TV. Ellie asks quietly, “Is he going to come back?” He hates hearing the pain in her voice.

Mom looks at her. “I don’t know, Elsie.” Her voice is so raw, he wants to cry.

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” he says, his words shaking, “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I’m so sorry, Myra. This is my fault. I made Dad go, and—”

His mom grabs his shoulders and looks him dead in the eye. “Stop right there, Billy. This is not your fault. Girls, you listen carefully, too–” she glances at the girls and then looks back up at his face, “–your father made a decision. It was his decision, not yours. You didn’t decide to be gay, but your father decided to be a jackass about it, pardon my French. And I will never let anybody keep my babies away from their home. Understand?” She stares at him until he nods, then at his sisters as they nod. She looks back up at him and smiles. “I love you Billy, and don’t you forget it.”

Something breaks in Dex’s chest, and he presses his face into the top of his mom’s hair and finally starts crying for real. She wraps her arms around him, and he shakes against her like he’s a kid again. He’s not quite sure what he’s crying for—for his dad, for his sisters, for her, but he also might be crying from relief. His mom still loves him. She loves him so much that she told his dad to leave instead of him. He is still her little boy, and he still gets to live here, in this home, with his sisters.

He feels Ellie and Myra wrap their arms around him and Mom, both murmuring, “We love you Billy, we love you Mom. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

It takes him a long time, but he stops crying and pulls away, his mind starting to become preoccupied with more regular concerns, “Mom, oh my God, how are we going to pay for Ellie and Myra to go to college?”

His mom laughs wetly. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ve got the accounts. We’ll figure it out.”

“But without Dad…” Ellie says quietly.

“We will figure it out,” Mom says emphatically, then sighs. “But right now, I kinda want some ice cream. Girls, would you go get it out of the freezer?”

Ellie and Myra go to the kitchen, and Mom pulls him onto the couch and tugs Dex around until he’s leaning back against her chest, like he used to do when he was very small. It’s a little strange now that he’s a foot taller than her, but he lets her wrap his arms around his neck and smell his hair.

Almost out of habit, he absently reads down the soulmarks on her arm, starting with Grandma Beth at her shoulder. It’s a familiar, comforting thing, to look at all his mother’s soulmates. He used to do it when he was very small, practicing naming letters on her arm.

When he gets to his father’s name, he gasps a little. The words _David Shea Poindexter_ , written in his great-grandma’s hand, are just barely visible, faded and blurred in comparison to the names around it. He knows that losing a soulmate is possible; he’s seen it in movies and heard about it on the news, but he’s never seen it in real life.

He looks up at his mom, who seems very focused on finger brushing his hair. “Mom, Dad’s mark…”

“I know, Billy.” For a long moment, she stares at the spot where Dad’s name used to be written in black. He’s never seen her look so old as in this moment. “But, look,” she says, smiling slightly, “I have a new one.”

He looks down at the newest names, written in the inside of her wrist. There, in his Grandma Beth’s handwriting, is the name _William James Poindexter_. His eyes prickle again. He checks his own wrist, and sees in the same writing, _Bree Catherine Kelly_.

His mom kisses his head. “I’m so lucky to have you, Billy.”

He closes his eyes and lets her hug him. He knows repercussions for tonight are coming; he’s going to have to deal with his dad at some point But right now, he’s so tired he feels like he could sleep forever. And as the girls walk in with ice cream, arguing comfortably about what they should watch on the TV, he curls up in his mother’s arms and lets himself enjoy being at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: one parent has a negative reaction and does not accept Dex, but this is not shown onscreen
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you want to read more of my things, I am on [tumblr](https://liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com)!
> 
> The rest of the countdown is [here](https://liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com/post/179805915293/countdown-to-twosf)!


End file.
